Artechknowhow: Motion blur? How the?

Yo! Wassup?

So what I am going to explain today is how I managed to get this shot , where the car is in perfect focus and the background appears blurred. Such shots require you to move your camera along with the subject, hence you are "panning" the camera along with it, thus it is called, a panning shot! Simple isnt it? Well not quite.

While making a panning shot, we must take a few things into consideration.
1)Slow shutter speed
By slowing down shutter speed, moving objects appear blurred. By churning it up, movement freezes. Simple enough right? Here, blur is an important part of our picture, so we select a slow shutter speed of say 40.
2)Aperture
Now, when our shutter speed is low, the camera sensor soaks up too much light. This is so because the shutter is open for a longer period of time, allowing more light to come in. So we will end up with an over exposed picture...which clearly isn't our goal. Well if it is. Go ahead.

Otherwise, set the aperture narrow. that means increase the f value. Remember, higher the f value means narrower the aperture. letting in as much less light. Also reducing Depth of focus, which here is perfectly fine, since we are going to have the background blurred anyways.

I clicked this picture on an overcast day, so i could manage to get my exposure just right by going for an aperture of f/16. On a brighter day, I might have had to crank it to even f/22.

The idea is increase f value = cut down light.

3) ISO
Now ISO setting can be left at auto if you want, I chose 200( I hate Auto!!!) The whole point is, that if despite the settings u tried with the low shutter speed and high aperture value that you had set, still if the light is too bad, bump up your ISO till you get enough exposure.

4) Moving the camera along with the subject
This is the fun part. Set your camera/lens to autofocus and try to follow the subject as it is moving. Avoid any kind of vertical shake, just pan your camera horizontally along with the car.Follow it for a second and click! Thats all!

Now what happens here is that, with respect to your camera since it is moving along with the car, the car is stationary. But since you are moving the camera the background is moving. SO the car stays in focus, while the background gets blurred! Wow! Exciting! Well ok, I found it quite exciting alright.

A few more tips that I find very useful:

Many people use tripods for panning, but I dont use them, I feel more comfortable doing it hand held. But choose what you find better! Anyways lots of practice is essential.You will suck a lot, don't get frustrated like me, you might end up with a bad headache..haha.

Position your body with your feet pointing in the direction of travel, feet together, and twist at the hips toward the oncoming object you want to pan on. As it comes towards you (or rather across the front of you), twist at the hips in the direction of travel. This way, you won't have to move your feet and you will get a nice smooth panning motion.

Tuck your elbows into your sides. This will surely help you keep your camera shake free getting better focus.

You can try slower shutterspeeds for more blurry effects.

Look for backgrounds that are not plain. A busy background will add more blur.